Monday, January 21, 2013

someone asked if i'd be more specific about what i do on translucent paper. yes, of course!

this is the front and back of what i lay the translucent paper on while i'm drawing. it used to be a pad of watercolor canvas, but i took the canvas out, flipped the cover over so the white on the inside was on the outside, and taped it to the back - which conveniently happened to be black. both sides are useful. i use the white side while i'm drawing and coloring, then i put the drawing against the black side to see if i've missed any areas. also, since i leave the eyes, lips, and outline of the nose free of color, i like to see if i like the amount of 'open space' i've left - the black shows you this instantly.

acrylic and graphite on waxed paper

i grabbed this face out of my manila folder of pieces in various stage of the process this morning; i painted it several weeks ago with white acrylic paint (i don't know how the turquoise got on there)... i'm showing it against the black so you can see that there isn't much going on initially, and you can see the unpainted areas clearly.

here she is after i colored her with colored pencils and graphite. i used my 8B pencil for the pupils of her eyes, otherwise it's just my mechanical pencil and miscellaneous colored pencils.

when i was finished, i laid her over mrs. du pre, which is the page i finished yesterday in my 'daily book'.... i laid the waxed paper on the page, it's not taped or glued down - i just wanted to see how it looked. i liked it there but not enough to cover up mrs. du pre. the thing that i don't like about using oil or acrylic paint for the skin is that you can't see through it; colored pencils or oil pastels, on the other hand, are translucent.

starting from scratch, this time on strathmore 300 series tracing paper... i drew the flower faces, colored them with an ivory faber-castell polychromos colored pencil,

and put them against the black to see if i'd covered everything that i wanted to cover with the ivory. after i touched things up a bit, i put the tracing paper back on the white side and finished coloring with colored pencils.

once i was done i tried putting the tracing paper over images in different books, but i didn't like any of the combinations. i liked it best on the ivory paper in my daily book - but not enough to leave it there for good! i taped it down temporarily so i could take this pic, then i took it off and put it in the manila folder for future use.

that's all there is to it... thank you for your great suggestions and kind words last week... : )

well.. we are both in love with that paper, i loved stitching it and i am down to my last few pieces, guess i will need to put it on the mikes list when i go to town later in the week... mrs du pre is wonderful and love the color swatches... oh and the bubbles.. outstanding..xoxo

Thank you...to be honest I had no idea how you incorporated the translucent papers. Beautiful work ...my heart has a resting place when I visit here. Have a great week sweet lady. Peace, Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart

snow hearts!!!!!! LOVE and those itty flowers can grow in my yard anytime they want...loved learning about your process for creating these sweet gems of color and light. Since it's 6 below zero here today, your blog was a nice and toasty place to hang out for a bit. xxooxxx

Lovely tutorial. I had some tracing paper time this evening, playing with colored pencil and a bit of gouache. I'll have to try the acrylic as well. The tracing paper does give it all a very misty quality--sort of like a dream... heavenly. :)

Hi Lynne,first let me say I love Mrs DuPre. She has such an ethereal quality. Then let me suggest using acrylic mat or gloss medium to thin your paint to get the translucent or transparent quality you are looking for.

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to answer questions about technique or materials... please feel free to ask here or email me. i work primarily in books using watercolors, gouache, pastels (soft and oil), graphite and colored pencils. i also love to work on muslin and plaster cloth, and when i'm out walking i draw on sticks, stones, and rusty stuff...